1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a battery assembly adapted to be mounted on an electric motor vehicle such as an electric car.
2. Background Art
For batteries, such as NiMH batteries, which are adaptable for use in an electric motor vehicle, it is known from theory and experience that the life of such a battery can be prolonged, and that such a battery can be more efficiently charged or discharged, when its temperature is kept within a predetermined range. Temperature control in a battery involves cooling or warming, and a corresponding battery storage or loading structure adaptable for cooling or warming a battery is therefore necessary. For example, Japanese Patent laid-open Publication No. Hei 5-343105 discloses a battery module which accommodates a number of rectangular parallelepiped battery cells. When using battery cells of such a shape, it is necessary to either to arrange the cells in contact with one another, or to set a fully rigid rectangular parallelepiped spacer intervening between battery cells in order to prevent cell deformation due to an increased inner pressure. In the above publication, a rectangular parallelepiped spacer having an opening is arranged between battery cells so that cooling medium or cool and flows through the opening.
However, since numerous spacers must be arranged in the above structure, the structure suffers from problems of complexity, increased part costs, and increased assembling steps. Moreover, such a structure is not directly applicable to a battery or a battery cell which is not rectangular parallelepiped.